PHP encoding problem

giannisptr

Hi everyone,

I am using php 5.2.2.
I implement a web site that invokes a java web service (using nusoap.php).
The web service queries a table from an sql server 2000 database and
returns a string with the records returned.
The problem is that although english characters appear correctly into the
string, the greek characters are all replayed by '?'.
The reason must be that the web service returns multibyte charecters (greek characters) and php cannot read them.

Is there any solution to this problem???

Thanks

NogDog

You could try using the multi-byte string functions.

giannisptr

NogDog wrote:
You could try using the multi-byte string functions.

Thanks NogDog for your reply....

I tried mbstring but no change at all.

the mbstring php values in the php.ini file are:

[mbstring]
; language for internal character representation.
mbstring.language = Neutral

; internal/script encoding.
; Some encoding cannot work as internal encoding.
; (e.g. SJIS, BIG5, ISO-2022-*)
mbstring.internal_encoding = UTF-8

; http input encoding.
mbstring.http_input = UTF-8

; http output encoding. mb_output_handler must be
; registered as output buffer to function
mbstring.http_output = UTF-8

; enable automatic encoding translation according to
; mbstring.internal_encoding setting. Input chars are
; converted to internal encoding by setting this to On.
; Note: Do not use automatic encoding translation for
; portable libs/applications.
mbstring.encoding_translation = On

; automatic encoding detection order.
; auto means
mbstring.detect_order = auto

; substitute_character used when character cannot be converted
; one from another
mbstring.substitute_character = none;

; overload(replace) single byte functions by mbstring functions.
; mail(), ereg(), etc are overloaded by mb_send_mail(), mb_ereg(),
; etc. Possible values are 0,1,2,4 or combination of them.
; For example, 7 for overload everything.
; 0: No overload
; 1: Overload mail() function
; 2: Overload str() functions
; 4: Overload ereg() functions
mbstring.func_overload = 7

Is there anything wrong on this?
Is there anything else i have to do?
I am new in php and maybe there is something obvious that i haven't do...

giannisptr

Thanks NogDog for your reply....

I tried mbstring but no change at all.

the mbstring php values in the php.ini file are:

[mbstring]
; language for internal character representation.
mbstring.language = Neutral

; internal/script encoding.
; Some encoding cannot work as internal encoding.
; (e.g. SJIS, BIG5, ISO-2022-*)
mbstring.internal_encoding = UTF-8

; http input encoding.
mbstring.http_input = UTF-8

; http output encoding. mb_output_handler must be
; registered as output buffer to function
mbstring.http_output = UTF-8

; automatic encoding detection order.
; auto means
mbstring.detect_order = auto

; substitute_character used when character cannot be converted
; one from another
mbstring.substitute_character = none;

Is there anything wrong on this?
Is there anything else i have to do?
I am new in php and maybe there is something obvious that i haven't do...

MarkR

You need to be absolutely sure what encoding everything is in, ideally have it consistent, and ensure that all inputs / outputs to your system use the same encoding (e.g. database, email, http response, third party systems).

Do not use mb string overloading, it is such a broken feature - PLEASE!

Don't use automatic re-encoding. Just get all your encodings consistent and correct to start with.

The easiest way of getting things to work is to use UTF-8 everywhere. If you want to support Japanese and don't want to use UTF-8, you are crazy 🙂

Mark

giannisptr

Thanks Mark,
I am totally lost.......

I think i have done all of this. The only input that uses different encoding is sql server(uses UCS-2).But calling the web service that queries sql server i ask the response into UTF-8 format. Is there any problem with it?

Here is the code for consuming the web service(using nusuap):

$client=new soapclient($wsdl);
$client->soap_defencoding="UTF-8";
$retstr= $client->call('GetRecords',$param);

Also i have set the charset of the page to UTF-8 and php.ini file is the same as i sent in my previous message(except that i have set mbstring.func_overload=0).

In order to test it, i add the following two commands into the php file:

print nl2br($retstr);
print nl2br(mb_convert_encoding($retstr,"UTF-8"));

But both of them return character '?' instead of the greek characters...

Any other idea or anything wrong on what i have done?

giannisptr

i used "$client->response" and got the entire message returned by the web service.
i parsed it and got the result of the web service called.
It now shows correctly the greek characters.
i don't know if there is any easiest solution but that worked for me....

Zpixel

i have the same problem but i don't understand "$client->response" . may somebody write it more clear.

Fatal error: Call to undefined method soapclient::request() in D:\Program Files\EasyPHP 2.0b1\www\Test\client.php on line 14

code :

<?php
require_once("nusoap.php");
$wsdl="BookHouseDBSearch1.wsdl";
$client=new soapclient($wsdl,'wsdl');
$param=array("BookTitle"=>"sth", "CurrentPage"=>"1","PageSize"=>"5","TotalRecords"=>"10");
$client->request("BookTitleSearch", array("parameters" => $param));
.
.
.

Zpixel

i have the same problem but i don't understant "client->response" . may somebody write it more clear, or any other suggestion.

error : Call to undefined method soapclient::response()

Zpixel

i have the same problem but i don't understant "client->response" . may somebody write it more clear, or any other suggestion.

error : Call to undefined method soapclient::response()

giannisptr

You should write $client->response not $client->response()
It is a property not a method.

execute:
echo $client_response;
and you will see the content of the web service response

Zpixel

thanks. but it dosn't work.
error: Undefined variable: client_response.

i think i have found the way . change the following lines of the nusoap.php file:
1) var $soap_defencoding from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 (in the begining of the nusoap.php file, line 130 approx)
2) var $decode_utf8 from true to false (line 6440 approx. under class soapclient extends nusoap_base )